Auto workers in Canada, Mexico, and the US held a highly unusual
international labour protest Jan. 8, 1991, to denounce exploitation of
workers in Mexico and resulting job loses in Canada and US.

The coordinated protests commemorated the first anniversary of the
murder of Mexican worker Cleto Nigno at Ford's Cuautitlan plant
near Mexico City.

Nigno was killed and eight others wounded in January 1990 when
professional thugs were brought into the plant and opened fire on
unarmed workers who had been demanding payment of earnings the company
had illegally withheld, and control of their own union.

In an action endorsed by the Canadian Auto Workers, the United Auto
Workers (UAW) council of all US Ford assembly local unions, and the
Mexican Ford Workers Democratic Movement, thousands of workers in all
three countries reported for duty this Jan. 8 wearing black armbands or
stickers with the message: "Remember Cleto Nigno -- Solidarity and
Struggle for Justice."

At rallies, news conferences, and a memorial service outside the
Cuautitlan plant, workers explained that, in addition to marking
Nigno's death, their joint protest was aimed at proposals by
President George Bush and Carlos Salinas and Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney to make their three countries a "free trade" zone.

Free trade, workers charged, is designed to make it easier for
transnational corporations to produce in Mexico under low-wage
conditions and export back to the US and Canada. Workers in the US and
Canada said they fear job losses and pressure to accept reduced pay and
working conditions in order to compete with Mexican conditions, while
Mexican workers fear they will continue to receive a small fraction of
US or Canadian wages.

"Mexican workers do not want to be used as scabs by the
corporations or steal our jobs," noted a leaflet distributed by the
CAW at all Ford operations in Canada. "They want to figh for
better wages and working conditions. It is in our interest to stand
with our Mexican brothers and sisters to help them come to our level, or
we could eventually face a decline to theirs."

Added Tom Laney, a leader of UAW Ford Local 879 in St. Pau
Minnesota, "we're not just against free trade. We are for
raising Mexican workers pay so they can buy what they produce and take
part in expanded trade that would support jobs for all of us."

According to Raul Escobar, elected leader of the Mexican Ford
Workers Democratic Movement, "Companies like Ford come to Mexico to
exploit workers, pay low taxes, and avoid environmental
regulation." Wages at the Cuautitlan plant average less than $60
per week, he said. There is only one break each eight-and-a-half hour
shift.

"To cut costs, the company even reduced the number of relief
workers that could take your place when you need to go to the
bathroom," said Marco Antonio Jimenez, another Democratic Movement
leader. "They said you should be able to relieve yourself and
still keep up with your job."

Workers charge that the armed attack on them a year ago was
coordinated by Ford and the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM),
which is affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
that has ruled Mexico for the past 60 years.

Three gunman captured by workers inside the plant admitted to the
news media that they had been recruited by CTM officials, brought
through Ford's security system in a bus, and given Ford uniforms
and I.D. badges. More than a year after the killing, however, no one
has been prosecuted for ordering the attack, and the gunman themselves
are free on bail, with most of the charges against them already having
been dropped.

Ford spokesman Al Chambers in Detroit confirmed that armed men were
brought into the Cuautitlan plant by someone on Jan. 8, 1990, and that
"at least some of them" were wearing Ford uniforms. He said
the company played no role in the assault, however.

"We don't know where they came from," he explained.
"It appeared to be an intra-union issue, not a dispute with the
company."

The Jan. 8 international protests developed out of contacts made by
CAW leaders as they and other Canadian unions participated during the
past year in a variety of conferences and exchanges with their
counterparts in Mexico. As the debate over a US-Mexico or
US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement heats up, more such contacts--and
more coordinated international protests actions--appear likely.

Matt Witt is a co-director of the independent American Labor
Education Center in Washington, D.C.

COPYRIGHT 1991 Canadian Dimension Publication, Ltd.
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